The cupid phone app ticking all the boxes

Entreprenurial trio find a way to help you flirt from your mobile with the quirky new dating device, Tick & Snap.

Wouldn't it be great if you could anonymously tell someone that you were attracted to them without the risk of being rejected? Now you can thanks a unique new dating app. Tick & Snap allows you to browse your mobile phone and Facebook contacts, ticking those you fancy.

The app then matches the "ticks" with other Tick & Snap users that you know, and if you both fancy each other, it tells you.

The app has been developed by entrepreneurs Ollie Levy - the 19-year-old son of Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, Sam Seller, 24, and Alex Dawson, 40, who all run SOA Networks.

So, how exactly does it work? Users scroll down their contacts, ticking the ones they are attracted to. The moment someone is ticked they receive a notification advising them that "someone" has indicated they are attracted to them, directing them to download the app to find out who. If they (the recipient) then "tick the person back", there will be an icebreaker alert, aka a "snap". If there is no match, users remain anonymous, avoiding any embarrassment or rejection.

There is also the option for users to leave a free clue about their identity, which the recipient can purchase once they have downloaded the app.

Mr Seller says: "There are a lot of dating services out there where you can search people in your location but what people are missing is what's right in front of them: a way to search the people you know." The app was launched in July and Mr Seller says the response has been "fantastic. People love the idea but we need to more people to know about it."

Tick & Snap is the trio's third iPhone app, following the success of My Valentine Text, which enables users to send anonymous text messages on Valentine's Day and My Destructible Text, which lets you send a text message that is permanently deleted once read. All the technology is developed in-house at SOA Networks, the company they founded two years ago.

"A majority of projects are through joint ventures, where we bring either the technical expertise or the business relationships to make the concept a commercial reality," says Mr Seller. "Technology is the way forward. You have to be clever and get your stuff out there. It's all about getting the user downloads."

Mr Seller, a former pupil at King Solomon High School in Essex, also owns property development firm, Launch 21.